The moment
When I took my seat at my first in-person Board of Trustees meeting with the Open University Student Union (Open SU), I found myself thinking about the journey that had brought me there.
To everyone else, I was simply another trustee attending a meeting. To me, that seat represented nearly nine years of rebuilding.
It marked the end of a journey that began in 2017, when my life changed almost overnight. Back then, I never imagined I’d one day sit around a Board table, contributing to decisions and representing fellow students.
To understand why that moment meant so much, I need to go back to where it all began.
When everything changed
Almost overnight, I went from living what I considered a fairly ordinary life to living with a visible movement disorder that changed my posture and, with it, many of my daily experiences.
At first, my focus was simply on surviving: constant nerve pain, endless medical appointments, and learning to live in a body that no longer behaved the way I expected.
What I hadn’t expected was how much my interactions with other people would change. People stared. Some whispered. Some called me names in the street. Others made assumptions about me before I’d even spoken, as if looking different meant being less capable or less intelligent. For the first time in my life, I was judged before people knew anything about me.
As time passed, I received messages – sometimes subtle, sometimes direct – that my posture would define my future. When I spoke about my ambitions, I was told I should look for a job at the back of an office, somewhere I wouldn’t need to interact with people, where nobody would really see me. Those comments stayed with me.
The physical limitations were difficult enough. I could no longer drive, and everyday life required more planning, more energy, and more courage. But over time, the emotional impact became even greater. After hearing enough messages about what I supposedly couldn’t do, I slowly started believing them myself.
Disappearing
My world became smaller. I withdrew from people, spent more time in my room, and stopped putting myself out there. My dreams never disappeared, but I kept them to myself. It felt safer than risking more disappointment.
One of the hardest consequences was loneliness. Some friendships faded because my disability made it difficult to be spontaneous; others simply drifted apart. I tried building new friendships online. Many conversations were genuine, and most people had no idea those conversations were often my only connection to the outside world. Sometimes people wanted to meet once, and afterwards the conversation quietly stopped. Other times, people were looking for something entirely different from friendship. And sometimes life simply became busy for them. I don’t hold that against anyone. For them, it might have been one conversation among many. For me, it was a lifeline.
Eventually, I reached a point where I knew something had to change. There I was, in my forties, living with a disability, back in my childhood bedroom, with a world that had become incredibly small. Yet one thing had never disappeared: my ambitions. If anything, they’d become even bigger. Maybe a little unrealistic, maybe even a bit crazy. But they were mine.
Even with my world reduced to four walls, I was still dreaming about building systems, working internationally, studying, leading projects, and one day contributing to organisations that could make a difference. Sometimes ambition doesn’t disappear just because life becomes difficult. Sometimes it simply waits until you’re ready to listen to it again.
What was still mine
I asked myself a simple question: What is still within my control? The answer was education. If I couldn’t control the first impression people had when they looked at me, I could control the knowledge, skills, and expertise I brought into every conversation.
After a few unsuccessful attempts at traditional universities, I deliberately chose an online learning environment. A place where I could focus on learning rather than worrying about being judged. I enrolled first at The Open University in the Netherlands and later, when programme changes meant it was no longer the right path, I started again at The Open University in the UK.
Studying a Computing and IT degree entirely in English, which isn’t my native language, was already ambitious. Apparently that wasn’t challenging enough, because I enrolled in ACCA as well. In hindsight, that tells you almost everything about how my brain works.
As I completed my first modules, something slowly returned: confidence. Not just confidence that I could study, but confidence that I could still solve problems, learn complex subjects, write code, and contribute something meaningful.
Rebuilding confidence
Feeling ready for another small step, I applied for virtual externships and collaborative projects. During my first year, I worked with around fifty people from different countries across three international projects. Again and again, I naturally found myself taking on the role of project manager or team leader. That surprised me.
For years I’d looked in the mirror and mostly seen limitations. But the people I worked with never mentioned my posture. They talked about how I organised the team, how I listened, how I communicated, and how I helped people work together.
The one thing I believed everyone would notice turned out to be the thing that mattered least.
My teammates described me as patient, organised, approachable, and someone who helped others feel heard. For years I had measured myself by everything I believed I could no longer do. These experiences reminded me to focus on what I still could.
The election
As my confidence returned, another opportunity appeared in my inbox: the Open University Student Union was looking for candidates to stand in its trustee elections. Without overthinking it, I registered, wrote my candidate statement, and submitted it. Before I knew it, I was standing for election.
Looking back, I still laugh a little. For years I’d been trying to become as invisible as possible. Then, almost on impulse, I signed up for an election where the entire point was to convince thousands of people to notice me. Sometimes growth doesn’t begin with confidence. Sometimes it begins with doing something slightly crazy before your self-doubt has time to stop you. It was exciting – it was also terrifying.
I shared my story, published photos of myself, wrote articles, posted on LinkedIn, and asked thousands of fellow students to judge me on my ideas rather than my appearance. Every post felt like a small act of courage. Then something happened that I never expected: I was elected.
Sitting at the table
Only afterwards did I begin to understand the responsibility that comes with serving as a student trustee.
Although I had the option to attend my first Board meeting online, I made a different decision: I flew to the United Kingdom and attended in person. Years earlier, I had been told that because of my posture, I should find a place where people wouldn’t see me. Instead, I found myself sitting around a Board table, contributing to discussions, sharing my perspective, asking questions, and helping shape decisions as an active participant.
That wasn’t just another meeting. For me, it represented nearly a decade of rebuilding. Not because my disability disappeared, and not because the challenges suddenly became easy – they didn’t – but because I finally stopped letting other people’s expectations define what I was capable of achieving.
Objectively, it was just a flight and just a meeting. For me, it was nine years of rebuilding wrapped into one journey. When I walked into that boardroom, I probably just looked like someone attending another meeting. But I knew it had taken nine years to walk through that door.
What surprised me most wasn’t simply being there – it was how much I loved it. I loved the discussions, the strategy, the different perspectives, and, perhaps most unexpectedly, I loved engaging with people. For years, I had been led to believe that I should stay out of sight, avoid public-facing roles, and accept that my disability would define how others saw me. Yet around that table, none of that mattered. I wasn’t the person trying to hide from the world anymore. I was an incoming trustee – contributing, asking questions, listening, learning, and connecting with others.
That meeting didn’t just mark the end of a long journey of rebuilding confidence – it showed me that I’m finally ready to step back into the world: not despite my disability, but with the confidence to know that it no longer defines what I can contribute. Perhaps that’s the greatest lesson of all: the world I thought I had lost can slowly become a little bigger again.
